(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Genaro Garcia Luna, once in charge of Mexico's battle against illegal narcotics and drug lords, was convicted of years of secretly protecting "El Chapo" and the Sinaloa cartel.Garcia Luna, accused of helping cartel members import and distribute massive amounts of drugs into the United States, was convicted Tuesday by a federal jury in Brooklyn, New York, after a four-week trial that revealed how drug traffickers they worked with the same official in charge of persecuting them.The 54-year-old former cabinet secretary led Mexico's Federal Investigation Agency from 2001 to 2005. Later, while serving as Secretary of Public Safety for then-Mexican President Felipe Calderón from 2006 to 2012, he oversaw the country's efforts to combat illicit drug trafficking.Arrested in 2019, García Luna is the highest-ranking Mexican official to have faced trial in the US on drug charges.Garcia Luna faces a mandatory minimum of 20 years in prison and up to life in prison after being convicted of the most serious charge, engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise.Cartel and PoliceDuring the trial, the US called nine former cartel members to the stand as cooperating witnesses.They described how García Luna secretly located members of Sinaloa in the Mexican federal Police.He provided them with official vehicles, uniforms, and insignia.Fake officers, and sometimes real federal police working for Garcia Luna, helped cartel workers unload drugs on airport runways and alerted drug traffickers to impending raids by US authorities.They even had the satisfaction of police arresting rival dealers and sometimes keeping the seized drugs.In exchange for his help, the cartel rewarded García Luna with a fortune, the jury was told.“He used his position in the government to win millions of dollars from the people he was supposed to prosecute,” Assistant US Attorney Saritha Komatireddy told jurors in her closing argument.A lot of moneyJesús “El Rey” Zambada, who ran Sinaloa operations at the Mexico City airport, testified that in late 2006 he filled bags with at least $5 million and gave them to a middleman to deliver to García Luna in an elegant restaurant in the capital.In turn, Zambada said, García Luna agreed to protect his brother, a cartel boss, and other law enforcement officers.Sergio Villarreal Barragán, a former Mexican federal police officer who began working for the cartel, testified that García Luna was paid up to $1.5 million a month for his services.After he was promoted to head of Mexico's security, he and his associates received about $230 million more for the added protection they could provide the cartel, allowing it to expand throughout Mexico, Barragán told the jury. .García Luna once helped notorious drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán intercept a two-ton shipment of cocaine from a rival gang, agreeing to split the drug proceeds equally, Barragán testified.He received between $14 million and $16 million in cash kept in cardboard boxes, he said.Best Market: New YorkIn total, the cartel shipped about 100 tons of cocaine a month to the US, worth between $2.8 billion and $3 billion a year in pure profit, Zambada testified.“The highest paying market is here in New York,” he told the panel.Jurors heard how drugs were transported to the US on cargo planes, private jets, submarines and even freight trains posing as oil carriers but containing secret compartments of coke.The cartel's trains ran from Mexico directly to New York City, witnesses said, carrying thousands of kilos of cocaine.As a result, one drug trafficker testified, the enhanced security provided by corrupt officials like Garcia Luna helped him bring $700 million to $1 billion worth of cocaine into the US, Komatireddy told jurors.The defense: it's revengeDefense attorney César de Castro argues the innocence of his client and sought to persuade the jury that the cartel members and former officials who testified against García Luna wanted revenge for his tough stance on drugs.“What better revenge against his common enemy than to bury the man who led the war against the cartel?”he said he in his presentation of the case.In closing, De Castro told jurors that prosecutors "made a deal with the devil" by giving admitted traffickers who had killed and tortured their victims a "free pass," offering them leniency on sentencing in exchange for their testimony against Garcia Luna.Original Note: Mexico's Former Security Chief Convicted of Helping El ChapoMore stories like this are available on bloomberg.comBERLIN, Feb 22 (Reuters) - Business confidence in Germany improved in February, adding to signs that Europe's biggest economy is recovering despite the energy crisis and high inflation, a survey showed. on Wednesday.The Ifo economic institute said its business confidence index stood at 91.1 points, after a revised reading of 90.1 in January.A very severe form of mpox, a disease formerly known as "monkey pox," has been detected in AIDS patients, according to a study published Tuesday. "A severe, necrotizing form of mpox (could) become an AIDS-defining illness." , point out the authors of this study published in Lancet.Seville, Feb 22 (EFE).- Sevilla's Argentine coach, Jorge Sampaoli, has called up twenty players for the second leg of the Europa League playoff against PSV Eindhoven, which the Sevilla team faces with a three-goal advantage.Jakarta, Feb 22 (EFE).- The Chinese Foreign Minister, Qin Gang, remarked this Wednesday from Jakarta that there is no room for "a cold war in the region", which "should not be forced to choose sides". in the midst of an increase in tensions between China and the United States.WNBA women's basketball star Brittney Griner, who was jailed in Russia for nearly 10 months last year, has signed a one-year contract with the Phoenix Mercury, the team announced Tuesday. "It's a great day for all of us to announce that Brittney Griner has officially signed to play for the Mercury in 2023," said Jim Pitman, the Mercury general manager.Major currencies were trading in negative territory on Tuesday night and the cryptocurrency market capitalization was down 2.21% to $1.10 trillion over the past 24 hours.Cryptocurrency Gains (+/-) Price Bitcoin -2.07% $24,326 Ethereum -2.82% $1,654 Dogecoin -2.93% $0.085 What has happened to cryptocurrencies The largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization, Bitcoin ( CRYPTO:BTC), was trading below $25,000.Ethereum (CRYPTOManchester City midfielder Kevin de Bruyne, whose name does not appear on the squad, will miss Wednesday's Champions League round of 16 game against Leipzig in Germany. In the pre-game press conference on Tuesday, the Leipzig coach Marco Rose claimed City still pose a big threat despite the 31-year-old's absence.The war has been a catastrophe for Ukraine and a crisis for the entire planetThe earthquake left a huge hole in her bedroom but Um Munir, a 55-year-old widow, says she will only leave her house in the Syrian city of Aleppo to go to the cemetery.The earthquake of February 6, which shook this large city in northern Syria, caused the collapse of the building next to Um Munir's, taking with it one of the facades of her building.A case that could change the future of social networks and technology companies began this Tuesday in the Supreme Court of the United States.The court examines the González versus Google case to evaluate the change in a law that dates back to 1996, and that grants legal immunity to the platforms over the content they disseminate.This case stems from a complaint against the US platform by relatives of one of the victims of the terrorist attacks in France in 2015.AFIP monotribute: how to pay the monthly feeNairobi, Feb 22 (EFE).- Some 5.4 million people will suffer "high levels of acute food insecurity" between March and June of this year in Kenya due to the intense drought in several areas of the country, the International Committee warned today Rescue (IRC).Defeated by Leipzig in the group stage last season, Manchester City should not be too confident in the German club's ground on Wednesday, just like Inter Milan against Porto, in the last two first legs of the round of 16 of the Champions League.-- Program for Wednesday of the first legs of the Champions League round of 16: - Wednesday: (20h00 GMT) RB Leipzig (GER) - Manchester City (ENG) Inter Milan (ITA) - Porto (POR) jde/cd/psr/iga/damSeoul, Feb 22 (EFE).- South Korea, Japan, and the United States carried out a combined missile defense exercise in the international waters of the Sea of ​​Japan (called the East Sea in both Koreas) just a few days after the Kim Jong-un's regime fired three ballistic missiles, one of them intercontinental.Bangkok, Feb 22 (EFE).- In the last twenty years, cocoa production in Thailand went from more than 1,000 to 97 tons per year due to competition in the region, among other reasons.Now, the country is betting in full "artisanal fever" to train farmers and raise the quality of local chocolate.Although cocoa farming remains a sideline and chocolate is a relatively new thing in Thailand, the popularity of the product is on the rise and it is gaining more and more space in the gastronomic habits of Thai people.In line with the fever for artisanal foods, what used to be a large-scale production gives way to small local producers who are committed to raising the quality of Thai chocolate by training farmers and monitoring each stage of its complex manufacture to reach "the highest levels"."Mass production doesn't care about the quality of the beans or the flavor or aroma. It's very standard, anywhere in the world you get the same thing. But for us, who make artisanal chocolate, it's a very small production because we care because of the grains, the aroma, the flavor and all the stages of the process," says Nuttaya Junhasavasdikul, founder of the Kad Kokoa chocolate shop, in an interview with EFE.INNOVATION AND LOCAL PRODUCTION Thus, in mid-November Kad Kokoa decided to join experts from the Faculty of Agriculture of the renowned Chulalongkorn University to create the Innovation Center for Research and Development of Sustainable Thai Cocoa (ISTC, for its acronym in English). ), whose mission is to revive the country's reputation for chocolate."The Center seeks to provide farmers across the country with the right knowledge to do fermentation correctly and thus raise the standards of Thai cocoa," explains Nuttaya, adding that the entity plans to offer various activities such as workshops, regular meetings and other resources. for the producers.The creation of the Institute accompanies the growing demand for chocolate among Thais, as well as the desire to reverse the vision that the product is still a "luxury item", since most of the products that arrive are imported from Europe or Japan."Chocolate in general can still be quite expensive, for the Thai it is considered a luxury. So we want to show that we can make quality chocolate in Thailand, that we can produce luxury locally," she qualifies.CHANGES IN TREND Little by little, the consumption of chocolate in its purest form -with flavors and aromas that combine fruity nuances with the characteristic bitterness of cocoa- are conquering more and more Thais, who usually consume this delicacy in drinks or sweets ."Thais are still not so used to chocolate because for them it is more of a drink or a snack, which contains chocolate but is not really chocolate," Leo Sebag, director of operations for Kad Kokoa, told EFE.According to data from the Statista platform, the country was expected to consume more than 42 million kilos of cocoa in 2022, a figure that should rise to almost 50 million by the end of 2025. However, most of that volume is still intended for beverages and other derived products, a reality that local chocolatiers "bet to change"."It is a fact that more and more people want to know what they are consuming, to know the origin and the steps behind the production. They are also looking for high quality and no longer want mass-produced products," Nuttaya says.Thanks largely to mass tourism and the influence of Western visitors, locals are increasingly turning to the "deli" in its original, artisanal form, a watershed in the country's consumption patterns.The figures confirm the paradigm shift: four years ago, when it was just beginning its operations, Kad Kokoa -the pioneer in the production of chocolate grown exclusively in Thai territory- used to buy between 100 and 200 kilos of cocoa per month from four farmers distributed around the country.In 2022, this number more than quadrupled and currently the chocolate shop purchases close to a ton of grain each month.Likewise, according to Statista, the cocoa market is expected to grow in volume by 8.9% in 2023, while revenue from the crop should rise from the 630 million dollars generated this year to 820 million dollars in 2025." In short, we are at the beginning of a new trend, of a new way of consuming chocolate around the world, and we are confident that within five to ten years Thailand will be consuming chocolate in the same way as we do in Europe," concludes Sebag.Nayara Batschke (c) Agencia EFEFrom her home in a Manila suburb, Rowena Jimenez cannot see the felled mountains that surround the Philippine capital. In Manila, Jimenez recalls that her family home had never flooded in the 1980s, when the Marikina River was raging." pristine", surrounded by farms, trees and just a few families.Gareth Southgate's epic as England soccer manager will be adapted into a play, starring Joseph Fiennes in London. Titled "Dear England," in reference to a letter Southgate wrote to English fans in 2021, the The piece was written by James Graham and could be scheduled from June at the National Theater in London.Did you know that there is a type of music that can do wonders for your brain?It is about binaural music that, as our Neurofitness expert Catalina Hoffmann recommends, we should listen to for about six minutes every day to change our focus, relax and, in addition, drive away negative thoughts.If we also do it with our eyes closed and pay attention to our breathing, we will achieve a moment of well-being and relaxation that will recharge our batteries for the rest of the day.Undoubtedly frustrated for having missed the World Cup in Qatar, and presented as the missing link that will guide Manchester City in the Champions League, Erling Haaland faces his Everest, and must overcome Leipzig on Wednesday in the first leg of the round of 16 to continue promotion. But if we let everything fall on Erling's shoulders, we will never win the Champions League", he warned before the last group game, against Sevilla.Madrid, Feb 22 (EFE) Saturday (6:30 p.m.) "will be a great opportunity" to pay homage to the former soccer player and honorary president of the white team.